Portable electronic devices are becoming more ubiquitous. These devices, such as mobile phones, music players, cameras, tablets and the like often contain a combination of devices, thus rendering carrying multiple objects redundant. For example, current touch screen mobile phones, such as the Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy android phone contain video and still cameras, global positioning navigation system, internet browser, text and telephone, video and music player, and more. These devices are often enabled an multiple networks, such as wifi, wired, and cellular, such as 3G, to transmit and received data.
The quality of secondary features in portable electronics has been constantly improving. For example, early “camera phones” consisted of low resolution sensors with fixed focus lenses and no flash. Today, many mobile phones include full high definition video capabilities, editing and filtering tools, as well as high definition displays. With these improved capabilities, many users are using these devices as their primary photography devices. Hence, there is a demand for even more improved performance and professional grade embedded photography tools.
For example, many users of mobile devices may use the camera feature in either video or camera mode. While taking a photo image, the user may desire to have taken a video instead. Likewise, a user may begin taking a video but realize that an image may have been more desirable. Often in mobile device camera applications, switching between the two modes is confusing or time consuming. A user may continue using the undesired format because the time required to switch formats may cause them to miss the photo opportunity.
Thus, it is desirable to overcome these problems with current cameras embedded in mobile electronic devices.